her burns she made rapid and complete
recovery.

Halton reports the history of a case of a woman of sixty-five who,
about thirty-five minutes before he saw her, had been struck by
lightning. While she was sitting in an outbuilding a stroke of
lightning struck and shattered a tree about a foot distant. Then,
leaving the tree about seven feet from the ground, it penetrated the
wall of the building, which was of unplastered frame, and struck Mrs.
P. on the back of the head, at a point where her hair was done up in a
knot and fastened by two ordinary hair-pins. The hair was much
scorched, and under the knot the skin of the scalp was severely burned.
The fluid crossed, burning her right ear, in which was a gold ear-ring,
and then passed over her throat and down the left sternum, leaving a
burn three inches wide, covered by a blister. There was another burn,
12 inches long and three inches wide, passing from just above the crest
of the ilium forward and downward to the symphysis pubis. The next burn
began at the patella of the right knee, extending to the bottom of the
heel, upon reaching which it wound around the inner side of the leg.
About four inches below the knee a sound strip of cuticle, about 1 1/2
inches, was left intact. The lightning passed off the heel of the foot,
bursting open the heel of a strongly sewed gaiter-boot. The woman was
rendered unconscious but subsequently recovered.

A remarkable feature of a lightning-stroke is the fact that it very
often strips the affected part of its raiment, as in the previous case
in which the shoe was burst open. In a discussion before the Clinical
Society of London, October 24 1879, there were several instances
mentioned in which clothes had been stripped off by lightning. In one
case mentioned by Sir James Paget, the clothes were wet and the man's
skin was reeking with perspiration. In its course the lightning
traveled down the clothes, tearing them posteriorly, and completely
stripping the patient. The boots were split up behind and the laces
torn out. This patient, however, made a good recovery. Beatson
mentions an instance in which an explosion of a shell completely tore
off the left leg of a sergeant instructor, midway between the knee and
ankle. It was found that the foot and lower third of the leg had been
completely denuded of a boot and woolen stocking, without any apparent
abrasion or injury to the skin. The stocking was found in the battery
and the boot struck